Polycarbonate resins are widely used in optical media fields, electrical, electronic and OA fields, automobile fields, industrial machinery fields, medical treatment fields and other industrial fields because of their excellent transparency, heat resistance and impact resistance. However, the aromatic polycarbonates currently in wide use are produced using starting materials obtained from petroleum resources. In light of modern concerns over depletion of petroleum resources and global warming due to carbon dioxide generated by thermal disposal of waste, more environmentally friendly materials with properties similar to aromatic polycarbonates are desired.
In this context, since anhydrosugar alcohols such as dianhydrohexitols (isomannide, isoidide and isosorbide) can be obtained from the plant-derived starting materials mannitol, iditol and sorbitol, these are being investigated as renewable sources for production of polymers and especially polyesters and polycarbonates (resources that, unlike depletable natural resources such as petroleum or coal, are themselves renewable: e.g., forest resources, biomass, wind power, small-scale water power and the like). Of these, low-cost starch has been produced as a starting material and used even as a starting material for drugs, while polymers employing isosorbide that is commercially available are also being actively investigated (for example, see Patent documents 1-5).
However no production process is known for polymers, and especially polycarbonates, obtained using such anhydrosugar alcohols as starting materials, that also allows control of the physical properties including the amount of production of polymer end groups with specific structures.    [Patent document 1] UK Patent No. GB 1079686    [Patent document 2] U.S. Pat. No. 4,506,066    [Patent document 3] International Patent Publication No. WO2007/013463    [Patent document 4] International Patent Publication No. WO2004/111106    [Patent document 5] Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2003-292603